Label: InsideOut Records
Release date: June 29, 2018
Album length: 137:52 min.
Genre: Progressive Metal
Even though the album is half a year old, it’s still our duty to put it under the microscope. Fates Warning are one of the key bands that helped drive the rise of the so-called progressive metal genre. Before anyone was even thinking about Dream Theater, bands were popping up all over the planet that already played hellishly fast and damn complicated, with singers singing in “quarter time” while the band played in “seven” and so on… From that first wave of such outfits, the “usual suspects” that come to mind next to Fates Warning are Queensryche, Crimson Glory, Hair Apparent, Savatage and Watchtower. “Live Over Europe” is only the band’s third official live album. It arrives exactly 20 years after “Still Water”, and I can tell you right away that it’s an excellent successor and one of the best live albums released last year. It has everything you demand from a live release by a band that’s been around since 1982, and that always comes with very high expectations.
The record has 23 tracks and over 138 minutes of playing time. It’s a live album from a world tour that brought Fates Warning back to Europe too. On January 23, 2018, as part of that tour, Fates Warning played Slovenia for the third time, Ljubljana for the third time, and Orto bar for the third time. And since the third time’s the charm, some of the recordings from Ljubljana ended up on this very new live album! Besides Ljubljana, Fates Warning also included recordings from these European cities: Aschaffenburg (Germany), Belgrade (Serbia), Thessaloniki and Athens (Greece), Rome and Milan (Italy), and Budapest (Hungary). The setlist covers songs written over a long-lived career spanning more than 30 years. As expected, the current “Theories Of Flight” is represented by several songs, but the band also touches on every single album from “No Exit” (1988) through to “Theories Of Flight” (2018). So it didn’t forget to work in a part of the superb EP A Pleasant Shade Of Grey, as well as a part of the progressive symphony The Ivory Gates Of Dreams, namely Acquiescence.
It’s an excellent cross-section of the band’s career in the “Ray Alder era”. On this tour the band was presenting its twelfth studio album, “Theories Of Flight”, and the lineup has also seen a slight change lately: Frank Aresti on guitar was finally replaced by Mike Abdow (Aquanett). Why finally? Because Abdow had already filled in for Aresti at shows back in 2013. So we’d already seen Abdow here at home, when Fates Warning played Ljubljana for the second time. What matters most on “Live Over Europe” is the band’s form. Even though the show was recorded at different locations, it sounds incredibly tight and seamless when it comes to energy and vibe. That means the band “survived” the European leg of the tour in remarkably good live shape. The playing is brilliant, and so are the connection and chemistry between the band members. Fates Warning run like a finely oiled machine made up of five excellent musicians. The interplay is outstanding, a perfect mix of technical complexity and seductive melodic passages and vocal lines. The most important element of all is Alder’s vocal form, as he nails all the material in top fashion. His voice is incredibly full. It adds just the right touch of grit, while the vocal is concise and expressive in every register. He’s got everything a real singer needs to squeeze passion and emotion out of an interpretation and win the listener over with it. Alder is flat-out brilliant and is ripening like good old wine. The sound production is brilliant.
This is an exceptionally polished successor to the excellent live debut that came out 20 years ago, i.e. the album “Still Life”. In fact, it’s a refreshed, (loosely speaking) expanded, new live version of “Still Life”. An authentic sonic imprint of the energy, the chemistry and the evolutionary milestones of this unique and truly special band, one that will irreversibly thrill their fans. Fates Warning have always been seen as just complicated enough to be too complicated for classic metal fans, which on the flip side widens their base to fans who listen to progressive rock and not necessarily metal. A band with big brains, proving its compositional and expressive brilliance throughout its career, and one that walks the path of maturing on its own road of self-evolution. “Live Over Europe” is a slice of that unique magic caught in time and space for good. It’s incredible where Fates Warning have taken the live delivery of some songs that were written back in the eighties and nineties. The band left their heart and soul on the stage, gave their 110%, and anyone among you who happened to be at Ljubljana’s Orto bar on January 23, 2018 will surely agree. All of that is also embodied in this exceptional live document. Judging by the setlist alone, this live document can also double as a great entry point for anyone who doesn’t know the band yet. It’s a superb cross-section of the discography, and an introduction to the band’s output from 1988 to 2018.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 10 / 10
Tracklist:
CD 1:
01. From The Rooftops
02. Life In Still Water
03. One
04. Pale Fire
05. Seven Stars
06. SOS
07. Pieces Of Me
08. Firefly
09. The Light And Shade Of Things
10. Wish
11. Another Perfect Day
12. Silent Cries
13. And Yet It Moves
CD 2:
01. Still Remains
02. Nothing Left To Say
03. Acquiescence
04. The Eleventh Hour
05. Point Of View
06. Falling
07. A Pleasant Shade Of Gray, Pt. IX
08. Through Different Eyes
09. Monument
10. Eye To Eye
Lineup:
Ray Alder – vocals
Jim Matheos – guitar
Mike Abdow – guitar, backing vocals
Joey Vera – bass, vocals
Bobby Jarzombek – drums
